Ethics Dunces

On The Lindsay Clancy Support Movement: ‘What’s Going On Here?’

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments
I'm afraid of what's going on here...

There has been so much weird, impulsive, counter-intuitive and counter-factual support for frauds, knaves and evil-doers on the ideological left that I have had a hard time keeping up with it—or maybe my brain is just rejecting what it regards as bad juju. An astounding number of young Democratic-Socialists lionize Luigi Mangione, who shot an insurance exec in the back in an alley. Hasan Piker, who campaigned with Abdul El-Sayed, now the Michigan Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, has repeatedly expressed his approval of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I have several Trump-Deranged friends who would have sent metaphorical flowers of thanks to any of the recent failed assassins whose target was President Trump. The support for Jason Arday and his sanctification as a victim is also part of the trend.

But this latest example is special. Hundreds of women, dressed in pink, protested last week outside Plymouth Superior Court in Massachusetts to show their support for Lindsay Clancy, the former nurse being tried for the murder of her three young children.

The mob wore shirts reading “Believe,” “She Needed Help” and “Peace for Lindsay.” Clancy, 36, pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her children—Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in January 2023. Her defense now is that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and severe mental illness and therefore should not be held criminally responsible. Okay. That’s the defense’s job in a case like this, and surely any mother who would murder her own kids, or any children for that matter, has a strong argument that she was legally insane. However, in 1994 when Susan Smith was convicted of murdering her two sons, three-year-old Michael and one-year-old Alexander, by strapping them in their car seats, and rolling her car into a lake, there was no such public sympathy for her. The defense’s insanity defense was rejected by the jury.

Social media, of course, is part of the difference, and the Clancy episode may stand as a perfect example of how the internet warps values, perception and ethics. The murderous mother’s sympathizers have followed the livestreamed trial daily, often analyzing witness testimony in real time. TikTok has viral videos with legends like “I Am Lindsay Clancy,” often showing the poster holding her own infant. (I would think such videos justify visist from child protective services.) “I Stand With Lindsay” merchandise—shirts, hats, stickers, mugs, socks and bags —-are being sold on line. A GoFundMe established for Clancy’s parents had 31,000 contributions by the end of last week, raising over a million dollars.

This woman murdered her children, remember, and there is evidence that she planned it; she didn’t just “snap.”

So Ethics Alarms has to ask the threshold question to begin an inquiry into so many ethics problems: “What’s going on here?”

Pages: 1 2

Ethics Dunce: Dan Koh (& Head-Exploding Campaign Video Of The Year So Far)

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Wow.

Dan Koh is delusional. The frightening thing is that the there are a lot of brain-washed progressives in Massachusetts who are so far gone that they won’t realize how crazy and hypocritical that ad is.

First of all, to lead with dead-eyed Joe Biden saying Koh’s name because two syllables is probably all they could get him to utter after 34 takes and maybe some AI dubbing, isn’t what I would call a boffo opening. Then to follow with Kamala Harris—why would anyone vote for someone Harris endorses? She picked Knucklehead Tim Walz as her running mate! Next Koh boasts about being a senior White House advisor who was either so dim that he didn’t realize the President was a rutabaga, or so corrupt that he was part of the cover-up of Biden’s dementia. There is no third option. Biden’s term was the most disastrous in American Presidential history: what did Biden fix, with Koh’s expert counsel?

Then he ends by saying “Democrats you trust” endorse him, and there are Biden and Kamala again. I can’t think of many Democrats less trustworthy than those two. Oh, maybe Adam Schiff, Jamaal Bowman, Rep. Omar and a few other scumbags, but it’s close. Harris endorsed Black Lives Matter, and said she wanted redirect public resources away from the police but didn’t support defunding the police, a typical muddled Harris policy position. As a Presidential candidate Harris said she wouldn’t change anything Joe Biden did…you know, like opening the borders and appointing a DEI Cabinet of incompetents, lackeys and dolts. Kamal;a also swore she worked at a mysterious McDonalds that apparently appears for day and then vanishes into the mist, like Brigadoon.

Joe let his addict son use him as an influence peddling prop. He promised to be a moderate and to bring the nation together, then allowed the far Left to run his crippled Presidency. He insisted that he was sharp as a tack while refusing to have his cognition tested after his brain had retired to Boca Raton. True, he “beat Medicare.”

That ad is like something out of an alternate universe.

(And Dan Koh looks like Adam Sandler.)

Sorry! A Jason Arday Ethics Train Wreck Update Because Attention Should Be Paid

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

There should be lots of topics to discuss on today the Friday Open Forum, which is going up next, but first, despite having promised to never post on the nauseating Jason Arday mess again, events dictate that I have to break that promise, because not doing my job regarding the EA mission would be more unethical than breaking a promise based on a premise that turned out to be false. It’s an ethics conflict. (I wonder why MAGA types have so much trouble with the concept. President Trump has delivered on a higher percentage of his campaign promises than any President since James K. Polk, and yet defectors like Tucker Carlson and Margery Taylor Greene—who would want to be a member of that club?— are furious because he started a necessary war that should have been started about 50 years ago. Morons.)

But I digress. Over in Europe, which stands as a frightening example of how quickly cultures can lose core values, Nathan Cofnas, who was the first to extensively expose Arday an academic fraud, announced that he has been suspended by Ghent University in Belgium and expects to be fired. His offense? “Discrimination”—-meaning that pointing out that a black academic star that Cambridge University had created out of DEI nothingness was in truth a serial plagiarist was racist. The school rector, Petra De Sutter issued a statement on l’affaire Arday asserting that freedom of speech “is not unlimited. It goes hand in hand with responsibility and may be restricted in order to protect the rights of others.”

Tell us more about the freedom to lie to the public and jump in line in front of genuine scholars because of one’s color, Petra!

Pages: 1 2

“When They Go Low, We Go High…” Suuure, Democrats: You Can’t Go Much Lower Than This

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Several of my Trump Deranged, “Knee-Jerk-Democrats-To-The-Death-Even-If-Their-Party- Started-Sending-Dissenters-To-Gulags” friends tell me that they are all exited about flavor-of-the-week Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga) ending up as the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee in 2028. Morons. Desperate morons. In addition to the fact that Democrats have painted themselves into a “must-have-a-DEI-President-or-bust” corner (I’m going to see how many of these I can have in a single post: that’s three), Ossoff has already proven that he is an irredeemable asshole. The latest smoking gun evidence was his snide innuendo that President Trump’s ever-present aide, Natalie Harp, is some kind of POTUS comfort woman.

Sen. Ossoff slimed the President this week by saying, “He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” The Axis loved it because its members are contemptible and have no ethical values left; Joseph Welch’s kill shot to Senator Joe McCarthy would be appropriate here if directed at “the resistance,” Democrats, progressives and the news media: “Have you no sense of decency?” No, in fact they don’t. The Axis cheers because Ossoff proved he could “troll” Trump. What he really proved is that he’s such an asshole that he would cast aspersions on a hard-working, patriotic young woman’s morals and rectitude, which in former, more ethical times would guarantee a law suit and maybe a duel.

Nevertheless, the Axis news media, disgusting and unethical to its core and getting worse by the second, pounced. “With All My Heart, Natalie.’ Trump’s Most Devoted Aide Emerges: President Trump’s White House aide Natalie Harp is always by his side. What, exactly, does she do?” snickered the New York Times. (Why look! Permanent Times Trump-slimer Maggie Haberman co-authored the piece! I’m shocked! Shocked!). Then we have similar “Riiight-she’s-his-“aide”-and you-know-what-she’s-aiding” (that’s four) stories from the The Independent, NBC News, The Guardian, MS NOW, The Hill, CBS News, Daily Mail, Bloomberg, Yahoo News, Washington Post, Daily Kos, and more. “Meet Natalie Harp, the aide so close to Trump she once rode in an SUV trunk to accompany him” slobbers CNN.  “Yes, We Absolutely Should Talk About Natalie Harp”  writes Media Matters’ (Talk about “Have you no decency?”) Paul Waldman.

Pages: 1 2

Ethics Dunce: Playboy

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Item: 2018. The Miss America Pageant puts Gretchen Carlson, former Fox blonde turned #MeToo icon, in charge. She says it is no longer a beauty pageant. Result: the end of Miss America.

Item: 2021. Victoria’s Secret brings in Megan Rapinoe, vocal butch lesbian athlete and LGBTQ activist to rebrand the female sex fantasy company. Result: Uh, no. It quickly returned to its core values after a period of confusion, sales and turnovers…which included Megan.

Item: 2023. Budweiser brings on feminist marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid who decided America’s top-selling beer needed to be pitched to a younger market, so she made male cross-dressing self-identified female Dylan Mulvaney the symbol of Bud Light in an ad campaign, because there’s nothing that appeals to middle-aged, bear-drinking football fans like “chicks with dicks.”

I just learned that “Playboy’s” new editor is gay in “I’ll make Playboy playful again, says its new gay editor/Phillip Picardi,” Quote:

“He wants to “destigmatise male sexuality”, he says, and “help men to build a healthier relationship” with the women in their lives. “I’m hoping we can be a space for men who feel caught between needing to be manosphere-adjacent and needing to be the performative liberal male,” he says…. “We should promote the idea that we can be excited about sex and we can be excited about each other and excited about touching each other,” he says with a cheeky grin.”

To me, that model on the current Playboy cover is androgynous, scuzzy, and reminiscent of what Hustler thought was sexy. But I am not a marketing target for Playboy, (or Hustler) and never was.

“Playboy” is already the walking dead, but still, the Santayana quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” is germane here, as is the principle that when an institution, tradition or product no longer has a place in the culture, you can’t save it by destroying its identity and integrity by pretending that it’s something else. Let these things die with dignity, or at least go down fighting.

Update: Addendum to “Making Ethics Sense Of The Jason Arday Saga”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I don’t really want to pat myself on the back for predicting this last night minutes after I learned about the sad finale to the Jason Arday debacle. Anyone who has followed the unethical patterns of the political Left and who is capable of objective thought would have known this would happen.

I wrote,

“You know, don’t you, that the next step will be a tsunami of op-eds and essay criticizing and condemning the conservatives—racists, all of them— who “killed” Arday with their determination to drive a neurodivergent “of color” out of his remarkable position. So he puffed up his resume a little bit— Everybody does it. How else was someone like him to break through the societal barriers white society has erected to impede people like him? I will be shocked if Arday isn’t quickly canonized as a victim. It is the perfect way to deflect attention away from the real issues behind this tragedy.”

I just finished a cup of coffee and two yummy hot biscuits, and saw these:

Morons. Look at the “loves” for the first one, by Sadiq Khan, whoever the hell he is.

It’s early yet. Those op-eds are probably just being finished now. I certainly wasn’t the only one who knew this would be the reaction by many on the Left. Here’s a quote from another “X” post on the topic: “The story that will be spun about Jason Arday will be that his death lies at the feet of the people who called out his serial fabulations for being what they so transparently were…”

On The California-Texas Foiled Baby Murder Case, Part II: Ethics Verdicts

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Again, I don’t know how any thoughtful, ethical person could question the outcome in this case. Apparently the “intended parents” refused to agree that they would seek appropriate medical care for the child after he was born with a serious but medically correctable heart problem. Having been unsuccessful in their efforts to have the child aborted late term, these ghouls were going to get custody of the child and perhaps have a hospital administer “palliative care”…that is, let the baby die. Pleasantly, of course,

A legal battle, at least regarding the life of the child, was averted when the child was born ahead of the September 3 due date.

As with some of the other cases discussed in Part 1, how could a typical pro-abortion advocate who uses the standard pro-abortion rhetoric about women’s “bodily autonomy” argue that the parents could force the surrogate to undergo an abortion? Yet abortion activists are apparently immune to integrity, logic, and decency. The main thing is to get the unborn child disposed of.

The surrogate’s contract contained a clause obligating her to submit to an abortion if the “intended parents” demanded it. The lawyers who drafted that contract should be sued for legal malpractice, and there are arguable ethical violations as well. I am wondering how common such contracts are, and how often they are enforced. For human beings cannot sell themselves into slavery or otherwise contract away their “unalienable rights.” That contract provision is unenforceable as against public policy, and should be made illegal by statute.

Republicans should pass the bill in the House and make Democrats show their lack decency when they vote it down.

Ethics points:

Pages: 1 2

Abortion On Demand Up To Birth

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

I have two simple questions for pro-abortion (or perhaps “pro mothers and doctors being able to kill viable infants at will” is a more accurate label…a bit long, I admit) advocates.

How can you honestly and sincerely defend the new Massachusetts abortion law? If you can, how do you look yourself in the mirror or sleep at night?

Abortion will now be allowed at any time before birth in Massachusetts after Governor Maura Healey (D, or course: what other party would do this?) eliminated the state’s abortion limits yesterday. Previously, the Bay State had allowed abortion only up until 24 weeks. Now a fully developed unborn infant can be killed any time during the 40-week gestation cycle, even second before birth. That means that the child could be delivered via C-section and instantly be protected by law as a living human being, but an unborn infant at the exact same state of development and fully viable can be murdered in the womb after the mother’s water has broken and contractions have begun.

To be fair, now, the home of my birth and happy childhood isn’t the only barbaric state with such an immoral law. Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and the District of Columbia of course, also believe that being able to kill living and viable infants in the womb is a human “right.” Peter Singer, the Princeton ethics professor, once caused an uproar when he said that as long as we were allowing abortions up to birth, why not let the mother see her baby first after it is born and then have the option to kill it? He was right: morally and ethically, either homicide is exactly the same. The distinction between born and unborn at that point is arbitrary and a legal fiction, created to let mothers feel better about a monstrous act.

Pages: 1 2

Flagrant Media Bias And Disinformation of the Year: NPR

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Here is how National Public Radio reported those statistics on D.C. crime on the one-year anniversary of President Trump ordering the National Guard to patrol the National Capital.

“Multiple studies have since found that the National Guard presence in D.C. has had no effect on violent crime, although there has been a decrease in opportunistic crimes like petty theft and vehicle break-ins.”

That summary arrives after NPR spends nine full paragraphs burying the lede, only to lie about what the lede is anyway.

When I read that [Aside: NPR had the gall to send me a solicitation for a contribution via email, signed by the NPR host who blackballed me as its ethics commentator for telling the truth about late-hit sexual harassment complaints, because I “seemed to be defending Donald Trump.] this morning I was genuinely puzzled. When I surfed past Fox News last night, Laura Ingraham was declaring that the statistics proved that Trump’s use of the National Guard was prudent and has been a great success. Two completely divergent news reports. This is why our journalism has become untrustworthy and dangerous. This is why civil discourse is nearly impossible, with citizens operating under competing distortions of reality.

And this is why President Trump was and is right to call our news media “enemies of the people.”

However, NPR’s distortion and deceit qualifies the network as a media Ethics Villain and an Ethics Corrupter. Note the chart above from the D.C. police site. A 32% decrease in murder is not “no effect” on violent crime. That isn’t just spin or bias, that’s a lie. NPR also plays language games, because that’s the Left’s specialty. “Opportunistic crimes like petty theft and vehicle break-ins” is the euphemism this nauseating excuse for a news organization uses to describe the following crimes that have decreased significantly in the past year in the District:

  • Robbery
  • Arson
  • Motor vehicle theft
  • Theft
  • Property crime
Pages: 1 2

“The King Is Dead! Long Live…Oh. Never Mind. Well, Bye!”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

What is the ethical way to handle a serious mistake for which you are completely responsible?

Hint: it isn’t what the radio station’s employee did in this fiasco.

Yesterday, the British Office of Communications (Ofcom) issued its report on an incident in May that was not covered very thoroughly in the former Colonies across the pond. The U.K. radio station Radio Caroline had aired three pre-recorded statements during “The Barry Marsh Show” announcing that King Charles had died. He hadn’t died. Nevertheless, the third statement said “news media” had confirmed that the King was dead. “God Save the King” was then played, the announcement was repeated, and there were 16 minutes of dead air. When regular programming resumed, Barry, whoever he is, apologized to listeners.

“I’ve just been informed that we’ve played in error some information a little earlier, I didn’t hear this myself, but it is incorrect, it’s a technical issue, and of course we apologize,” the host said. To the station’s audience, King Charles had been “dead” for about a half an hour.

How did this happen, you well may ask. Here’s how: Radio Caroline, which plays music from the 1960s to today, was streaming from a remote location. A staffer was performing maintenance on a studio computer and found the three files prepared for King Charles’ death. 

Although the files “are accompanied with a set of strict instructions to presenters and managers to follow before being aired,” the staffer played the files “out of curiosity.” This stopped the stream from the presenter’s remote location, and broadcast the pre-recorded announcement on the air. Barry was on a call and didn’t immediately notice that his show was telling people that the King had died.

And the staffer responsible for this mess? He or she (the sources say “they,” which is stupid and useless…but woke!) panicked…and ran away, leaving the office.

Brilliant.

Radio Caroline says it “took the matter very seriously, and much activity was taking place during those 30 minutes leading up to the apology.” Yet the station says that the staffer responsible was “reprimanded” and has “apologized.” That is not taking the matter seriously.

A staffer who has otherwise performed well in a job can legitimately and ethically be given a second chance after a major error like this, but the staffer’s reaction is not pardonable. The individual lacks the character, composure, judgment and sense of responsibility to justify a second chance. “They” cannot be trusted.

It is workplace management like Radio Caroline’s that is creating an epidemic of incompetence across the United States, including in national, state and local governments, and apparently worldwide. Falsely telling the British public that the King is dead is a minor inconvenience compared to all the expense, inefficiency, frustration and damage this kinder, gentler approach to management causes.

____________________

Pointer: Young Bill